Kristin Turney

Barriers to School Involvement: Are Immigrant Parents Disadvantaged?

Parental involvement at school offers unique opportunities for parents, and this school-based involvement has important implications for childrens academic and behavioral outcomes. The authors used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (National Center for Education Statistics, 2001) to examine race and immigrant differences in barriers to parental involvement at school. Minority immigrant parents, compared with native-born parents, reported more barriers to participation and were subsequently less likely to be involved at school. Among immigrant parents, time spent in the United States and English language ability were positively associated with involvement, but these associations differed by race. Barriers to involvement serve as another source of disadvantage for immigrant parents and their children.

Despair by Association? The Mental Health of Mothers With Children by Recently Incarcerated Fathers

A burgeoning literature considers the consequences of mass imprisonment for the well-being of adult men and—albeit to a lesser degree—their children. Yet virtually no quantitative research considers the consequences of mass imprisonment for the well-being of the women who are the link between (former) prisoners and their children. This article extends research on the collateral consequences of mass imprisonment by considering the association between paternal incarceration and maternal mental health using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Results show that recent paternal incarceration increases a mother’s risk of a major depressive episode and her level of life dissatisfaction, net of a variety of influences including prior mental health. The empirical design lends confidence to a causal interpretation: effects of recent incarceration persist even when the sample is limited to mothers attached to previously incarcerated men, which provides a rigorous counterfactual. In addition, the empirical design is comprehensive; after isolating key mechanisms anticipated in the literature, we reduce the relationship between recent paternal incarceration and maternal mental health to statistical insignificance. These results imply that the penal system may have important effects on poor women’s well-being beyond increasing their economic insecurity, compromising their marriage markets, or magnifying their risk of divorce.

Redefining Relationships: Explaining the Countervailing Consequences of Paternal Incarceration for Parenting

In response to dramatic increases in imprisonment, a burgeoning literature considers the consequences of incarceration for family life, almost always documenting negative outcomes. But effects of incarceration may be more complicated and nuanced. In this article, we consider the countervailing consequences of paternal incarceration for a host of family relationships, including fathers’ parenting, mothers’ parenting, and the relationship between parents. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we find recent paternal incarceration sharply diminishes parenting behaviors among residential but not nonresidential fathers. Virtually all of the association between incarceration and parenting among residential fathers is explained by changes in fathers’ relationships with their children’s mothers. Consequences for mothers’ parenting, however, are weak and inconsistent. Furthermore, our findings show recent paternal incarceration sharply increases the probability a mother repartners, potentially offsetting some losses from the biological father’s lesser involvement while simultaneously leading to greater family complexity. Taken together, the collateral consequences of paternal incarceration for family life are complex and countervailing.

Positive, Negative, or Null? The Effects of Maternal Incarceration on Children’s Behavioral Problems

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to consider the effects of maternal incarceration on 21 caregiver- and teacher-reported behavioral problems among 9-year-old children. The results suggest three primary conclusions. First, children of incarcerated mothers are a disadvantaged group that exhibit high levels of caregiver- and teacher-reported behavioral problems. Second, after we adjust for selection, the effects of maternal incarceration on children’s behavioral problems are consistently null (for 19 of 21 outcomes) and rarely positive (1 of 21) or negative (1 of 21), suggesting that the poor outcomes of these children are driven by disadvantages preceding maternal incarceration rather than incarceration. These effects, however, vary across race/ethnicity, with maternal incarceration diminishing caregiver-reported behavioral problems among non-Hispanic whites. Finally, in models considering both maternal and paternal incarceration, paternal incarceration is associated with more behavioral problems, which is consistent with previous research and suggests that the null effects of maternal incarceration are not artifacts of our sample or analytic decisions.

Stress Proliferation across Generations? Examining the Relationship between Parental Incarceration and Childhood Health

Stress proliferation theory suggests that parental incarceration may have deleterious intergenerational health consequences. In this study, I use data from the 2011–2012 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) to estimate the relationship between parental incarceration and children’s fair or poor overall health, a range of physical and mental health conditions, activity limitations, and chronic school absence. Descriptive statistics show that children of incarcerated parents are a vulnerable population who experience disadvantages across an array of health outcomes. After adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic, and familial characteristics, I find that parental incarceration is independently associated with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, behavioral or conduct problems, developmental delays, and speech or language problems. Taken together, results suggest that children’s health disadvantages are an overlooked and unintended consequence of mass incarceration and that incarceration, given its unequal distribution across the population, may have implications for population-level racial-ethnic and social class inequalities in children’s health.

Pathways of disadvantage: Explaining the relationship between maternal depression and children's problem behaviors.

A large body of literature documents that children of depressed mothers have impaired cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes throughout the life course, though much less is known about the mechanisms linking maternal depression to childrens outcomes. In this paper, I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate and explain the consequences of maternal depression for 5-year-old childrens internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Ordinary least squared (OLS) regression models and propensity score models show that children exposed to both chronic and intermittent maternal depression have more problem behaviors than their counterparts with never depressed mothers. Results also show that economic resources and maternal parenting behaviors mediate much of the association between maternal depression and childrens problem behaviors, but that relationships with romantic partners and social support do little to explain this association. This research extends past literature by illuminating some mechanisms through which maternal depression matters for children; by utilizing longitudinal measures of depression; by employing rigorous statistical techniques to lend confidence to the findings; and by using a large, diverse, and non-clinical sample of children most susceptible to maternal depression. Given that early childhood problem behaviors lay a crucial foundation for short- and long-term life trajectories, the social consequences of maternal depression may be far-reaching.

Neighborhood Disadvantage, Residential Stability, and Perceptions of Instrumental Support Among New Mothers:

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing survey (N = 4,211), this study examines neighborhood disadvantage and perceptions of instrumental support among mothers with young children. The authors find that (a) living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with less instrumental support, particularly financial assistance, from family and friends; (b) residential stability is associated with stronger personal safety nets irrespective of neighborhood quality; and (c) mothers who move to a more disadvantaged neighborhood experience a small but significant decline in perceived instrumental support compared with those who do not move. In interpreting these results, the authors suggest instrumental support may be either a cause or consequence of living in an advantaged neighborhood, but in either case, neighborhood and social network disadvantages go hand in hand.

Maternal Depression and Childhood Health Inequalities

An increasing body of literature documents considerable inequalities in the health of young children in the United States, though maternal depression is one important, yet often overlooked, determinant of children’s health. In this article, the author uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,048) and finds that maternal depression, particularly recurrent or chronic depression, puts children at risk of having unfavorable health when they are five years old. This finding persists despite adjusting for a host of demographic characteristics of the mothers and children (including children’s prior health) and is consistent across multiple health outcomes. Family instability, maternal health, and socioeconomic status account for the association between maternal depression and children’s health. Given that poor childhood health may lead to poor health and low socioeconomic status in adulthood, maternal depression may contribute to the intergenerational transmission of inequality.

Falling Behind? Children’s Early Grade Retention after Paternal Incarceration

A growing literature documents the myriad penalties for children of incarcerated fathers, but relatively little is known about how paternal incarceration contributes to educational outcomes in early and middle childhood. In this article, we use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to provide the first estimates of the relationship between paternal incarceration and children’s grade retention in elementary school. Propensity score matching models indicate that children of incarcerated fathers are more likely to experience early grade retention than their counterparts. This relationship is not driven by test scores or behavior problems; preliminary evidence suggests this relationship may be driven by teachers’ perceptions of children’s academic proficiency. These findings suggest that elementary school teachers may play an important role in the lives of children experiencing paternal incarceration and, more generally, highlight yet another way in which the large-scale incarceration of men limits their children’s potential.

Investigating the Relationship between Perceived Discrimination, Social Status, and Mental Health:

A growing body of evidence suggests that experiences with discrimination have implications for mental health and that these associations may vary by social status. We use data from the Chicago Community Adult Health Study (CCAHS) to examine how two types of perceived discrimination, chronic everyday discrimination and major lifetime discrimination, are linked to mental health and how this association varies by race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. Results indicate that everyday discrimination is generally independently linked to greater depressive symptoms, loneliness, and hostility across all social status groups. Major discrimination is not associated with depressive symptoms or loneliness after adjusting for a host of covariates but is associated with hostility, especially for certain groups. These findings highlight the need to examine multiple indicators of discrimination and mental health and to pay attention to both differences and similarities in these associations by social status.